A wide variety of medical imaging systems are used for performing diagnostic and surgical procedures in medical treatment rooms. Such systems have been developed to increase a surgeon's ability to perform surgery by providing intra-operative images of anatomical structures within a patient's body. During various types of minimally invasive surgeries like endoscopic, arthroscopic, and laparoscopic procedures, a surgeon is able to visually examine the interior of an organ or joint while conducting the surgery.
Medical imaging systems are known to incorporate various audiovisual devices to allow better monitoring of a medical procedure. These systems allow the surgeon, or other individuals assisting or observing, to utilize the imaging capabilities in different ways, simultaneously or at different times, for a variety of different objectives. One such system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 8,069,420 to Plummer, the content of which is incorporated by reference in its entirety. As discussed therein, both still images and live video are acquired during the surgery and can be output to various different screens or recording devices.
Recent legislation has made the protection of such still images and live video, e.g., electronic protected health information (ePHI), a priority. For example, one piece of legislation is the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act) of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. One requirement of that legislation is the privacy and security of electronic health information, including the requirement that HIPAA covered entities report certain data breaches. Accordingly, medical professionals are trying to comply with such legislation when using medical imaging systems to create, securely transmit and store ePHI.
In order to comply with privacy and security objectives, current medical imaging systems have implemented security features that prevent accessing any features of an imaging system before a user is authenticated. However, such security features often compromise current workflows and make medical imaging systems less user-friendly. Therefore, it would be beneficial to have a superior system and method for electronic protected health information security for digital medical treatment rooms.